Day 82: Mile 926.9 - 942.5
And today was the day I ran out of Push.
To be fair, I wasn't aware that I *was* pushing the past few days. But, in retrospect, I have been, ever since falling in the river. First off, I have realized that, since that day, I haven't had a good night's sleep. Sleeping is one of the hardest things to do: it turns out, I can only sleep in certain positions, with my torso arched and held in certain configurations, or else my breathing becomes very shallow and labored or, in the worst case, stops entirely. But this means that sleep isn't restful, it's more like work. And while I'm admittedly subconscious, my body still feels it in the morning. Sleep becomes most akin to sleep on an airplane: yes, you're asleep, but because you can't move (there because you're squeezed in with no movement options, here because you're arched and held with the same) you often wake up more stiff than when you fell asleep in the first place. This was especially true the first night in Mammoth: there I woke up in the morning with my abs feeling like I'd done crunches all night, they were so tense and sore. And actually, sleeping here it's actually a bit worse than the plane: at least on the plane I can jam my foot against some random bar of the seat in front of me, buttress myself against something: here, laying on a flat featureless pad, there's naught but my own bones and muscles to hold me in place. So sleep actually becomes exhausting, and I wake not rested at all. Which is bad: sleep is my primary recovery mechanism.
Second off, I have been pushing the miles. It may not look it, but it's more true than false. After the fall, I did my biggest day in the Sierras--mor ethan 19 PCT miles--then an admittedly short day after. The day in Mammoth itself was a busy Chore Day, so plenty of walking around and rushing to get things done before they closed. Coming out of Mammoth was a short day, but then two longer days--about 15 miles each--after, including today where I raced to get to Tuolumne Meadows in time before the General Store closed at 7pm (and reached 3 mph on trail in so doing). And while normally these mileages aren't necessarily large, when every breath is painful, and when the right shoulder will just spasm out every now and then in the most trivial positions (I was eating tonight, and just bringing a spoonful of food to my mouth, and my right arm started twitching and failing multiple times), even short mileages become pushes.
So add it up: without restful sleep, for the past 6 days or so I've been running on reserves, and with miles and chores and trying to live "normally", for the past 6 days or so I've been depleting those reserves. And today they finally hit empty. In the morning, we climbed up Donohue Pass--not a hard climb, 1200 feet elevation gain in 3.1 miles, something that should be easy given what we've done before--and I was gassed all the way up. And on the way down, more steep, technical work, and I was almost stumbling and falling, all my limbs--legs, arms, lungs--feeling weak and on the edge of giving out. We got to a lake and rested and I was the last one in, and feeling just tired, exhausted. And, worst of all, my left ankle injury--the one from Julian (week 1) where the upper tendon gets inflamed and starts pulsing and hurting on every step--that started to reappear. A wise man would have stopped at that lake, made camp, and rested that ankle, even though I'd only gone about 5 miles on the day at that point, but I pushed onm a-stumbling and near-tumbling down another steep portion, trying to make Tuolumne Meadows and keep up with everyone else. And in my defense, on the elevation profile, after this steep descent the trail would flatten out for a goodly portion of 6+ miles all the way to the Store, so once I got down from here, I would be--on paper at least--"fine".
But this entire morning and early afternoon was disheartening. To have the body start to fall apart, to have an old injury resurface--I remember the day of the fall, that morning, thinking to myself, hmm, I'm in probably the greatest shape I've ever been in (the swim team in high school being the strongest contender), how can I keep this health when I get off trail? And then suddenly everything turns, and now the body is going to pieces and I'm trying to manage the shrapnel. That about-face was tough mentally, all the old bugaboos about how are you going to finish?, how are you going to do big miles?, are now accompanied by, let's say you even have the will and the planning to do it, is your body going to hold up? Your trail legs, even if you have the endurance to hit 3 mph and do long miles, will your tendons and muscles hold? Will your bones? (Lots of folks get stress fractures on this section from what I hear.) All this adds up to a lot of disheartening, a lot of wallowing in pain and misery, a lot of death march down the mountain.
So to make it to Tuolumne, I finally gave in and downed 3 Advil. I don't like taking pain killers unless I have to, but with the ankle hurting so much and so many miles to go, this counted as having to. And it seemed to help: the ankle stopped hurting as much, and that allowed me to get down the mountain and actually look up every now and then and appreciate what I was passing through.
Because it is very beautiful here. Looking south from Donohue Pass is likely very beautiful, fields of boulders crowding out the green grass as little rivulets flow out from under stone, then gather into the beginnings of Rush Creek (I believe it's called), still indulging its youthful wanderings, on the plateau just below. And the lake we stopped at--Lyell Fork--where another river (this on the other side of the pass, after all) pools for a moment, widening out before it starts its inevitable tumble down the canyon. (And here we stopped and most folks went for a swim or at least soaked their feet, and I instead went to dig a cathole.) Even the long descent down from the lake to the meadow below, step after step down sometimes stone stairs, but mostly oddly angled rock, stochastically jutting out from the soil in a way that required concentration and decision for every footfall, even that had it's own type of beauty. But I missed most of that--the drugs didn't kick in until the meadow at the bottom.
But what a place to kick in! The meadow, an expanse of green grass at the bottom of a U-canyon, cradling the Lyell Fork as it works it's way down gravity's ladder, sometimes so placid and calm you can see the sky and clouds reflected in its mirrored waters, sometimes rushing and bone-vibration loud as it uncovers a tumble of stone and boulder beneath the valley floor and kicks and sputters its way over. The edges of the meadow are lined with trees, and the trail walks along the transition, the meadow spread to the right as the pines shelter from above, the day kept cool and trail kept mostly flat. Occasional trees dot the meadow, and occasional white boulders, polished and accidently dropped from some glacier's pocket. Oh, and flowers: one of the first things you notice is that the green isn't just green, but run through with swaths of yellow, the pepper of flowerlets gathering to spice the whole.
It is utterly beautiful and, if you stop to sit for a spell, I'm guessing utterly serene as well. (I didn't have the time, nor the health, to do stop.) And It's one of those spots that's close enough to "civilization"--namely roads and parking lots--that maybe I would bring my parents out to see it. It's off the main line that most visitors tread, so still pretty empty, but it may be a bit far, maybe a 10 mile day to get out there and get back, and that may be a bit long.
But I did race to the Tuolumne Meadows General Store, and I did get there in time--about half an hour before closing at 7pm. And I went in, checking out its viability as a resupply spot, and the selection was not great, and the prices were high, and then I checked it out as a place-to-get-food spot (there's a restaurant too, but it closed at 5pm), and the selection wasn't great (no soda, only alcohol, and they had run out of ice cream), and the prices were high. So likely tomorrow I will go into Yosemite Valley and try the store there. And Yosemite Valley's far, so that means that tomorrow will likely end up being a zero day: an hour or two on the bus to get to Yosemite Valley, grab some groceries, then an hour or two to get back, and the day is pretty much shot.
But that might be good. For AC/DC and Outlast, for Lux and Khaleesi, this is their first time in Yosemite, and of all the things in the US to see, Yosemite and Grand Canyon are pretty high on the list. So they might spend the day in Yosemite Valley anyway, just taking in the sights. But that'll give me a brief window of reprieve: try to get a good night's sleep tonight (going to down 4 Advil to aid that), try to take it easy tomorrow to rest the ankle (a repeat of Julian so long ago), then try to get another good night's sleep tomorrow night (back to the bottle for that one too). So while today was the day I ran out of Push and started Breaking, at least I was with other people who weren't necessarily aware of that (and like my mom I felt no reason that I should burden them with such awareness), so I throughout the day I did smile and gab and that helped lighten the load, at least when we stopped to take in the sights. And that helped me get through it, and I'm here, now, in the hiker campgrounds of Tuolumne, and hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to get in a good Recovery.
-- Campsite > Marie Lakes Trail Junction > Donohue Pass > Lyell Fork > Tuolumne Meadows > Campground
-- So many people gathered here at Tuolumne. I saw McQueen and Caveman and Tress, who seemed to be perhaps building an informal party; I saw V-Dub and Suave and their established party (is Mash part of that one?); and then there was of course us, AC/DC and Outlast, Lux and Khaleesi, and Dylan and Uno and me. Lots of folks and their bags crowding the picnic tables right outside the General Store!
-- One of the benefits of going with a group?: when you're in the middle of the pack, and you arrive at the General Store, and the folks ahead of you have already made dinner plans for the group. The General Store looked a bit sparse, but they had managed to round up some hot dogs (3 per person!), some hamburger buns (1 per person) (beggars can't be choosers), macaroni salad (half a box per person), even a can of chili. We camped in the backpacker area, which was up the hill atop the bluff, and was crowded: tents everywhere. Lux managed to scrounge up some loose firewood (where, I don't know--you'd think it had all already been picked) and started a fire, and I got two grilled hot dogs, between hamburger buns, with chili. And then ate a bunch of other folks' third hot dog. It was a good dinner, sitting at a picnic table, noshing and joshing as the dark came on and the red headlamps came out, a relaxing cap to an otherwise tough day.
-- And today I learned that the "Splash" trail name was evidently advocated by McQueen, rather than by Dylan as I had thought. He explicitly mentioned that the name was neutral, thought it a plus, whereas--at this time--I think the name should be reflective of the stupidity of my actions. (Just get in the water!, as McQueen repeated even today.) I admit that, by this time, I have a certain recalcitrance about trail names, for which I have Reasons, which have been Fomenting for quite some time. Perhaps it's just my Ornery-ness, but I'll Expound them at some point (it's just getting late now and I wish to Sleep).
-- There is also one thing I didn't think about. Meeting McQueen again and going over the story, he reiterated his line--just get in the water!--only his eyes had a certain hollow aspect to them when he said it. Maybe he was just tired from all the hiking and the race to get into Tuolumne before the General Store closed, but I admit I'd never thought of the impact my fall might have on the folks who helped me out, on Heaves and McQueen and Pain Perdu. Because they just saw a guy slip and fall in a river, possibly break some ribs, possibly dislocate his shoulder, then start shivering uncontrollably--as McQueen said, I'd never seen someone shiver so much. What must that experience be like for them? To see such a dire accident happen right in front of your eyes. So forget me and my hurt, forget my complaints about pain, my selfishness, and think about the helpers, and how powerless they must have felt in that instant of uncertainty as I'm going down into the water. Nobody, I think, will dwell much--if even recognize--the pain of *that* experience, but perhaps we ought to.
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